


Happy Together

by Rachy



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, The Immortals - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Goldenlake, married conversations, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 10:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachy/pseuds/Rachy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's another conversation, but it has important outcomes for Kally and Kaddar. </p><p>Written for Goldenlake's SMACKDOWN 2013, for Kally/Kaddar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Together

It’s been eight months, and she has done nothing but wait. Along with all of Carthak. 

 

But it has been a month now. Two months, really. Maybe three. Three if she counts when, then one missed, two missed, and she has not breathed a word to anyone. And her Gift will only tell her what she wants and fears to see. Yes, you are. No, you aren’t. Yes, but that is the thing you want least. No, because it is the thing you want most.

 

She dips her hands into the basin and washes the sweat off her face, pats her face dry with her nightgown hem and drops it guiltily as her husband raises his eyebrows in the mirror behind her. He is laughing, and she grumpily storms past him, snaking her arm back, and grabbing his wrist, drawing it around her waist. He keeps it there, their fingers awkwardly tangled, and they stare at the choice of doors in their sitting room.

 

“Sometimes you delight me as my wife.” He murmurs, blowing gently into her ear and tightening his arms when she wriggles away.

 

“Sometimes you are the most irritating husband. Are we retiring to your rooms or mine?”

 

“Yours, I should think. Unless you would prefer mine in the morning, so I disturb you less? I have accounts I was reading in either.”

 

“Preferences by accounts? Most disappointing.”

 

“I thought you would prefer yours.”

 

“Mine it is then.” She says breezily, and opens the door for him. He settles himself in the bed as she fiddles with her hair, twisting the carefully brushed strands into a braid, and she perches herself on the edge of the bed. She twists herself around and tucks herself under the covers, and Kaddar looks at her, confused by her awkwardness. 

 

“Are you feeling well?” He asks, brow furrowed. She looks up at him and gives a reassuring smile.

 

“I am fine.” She replies, and nestles herself into the pillow, turning her back and closing her eyes. Kaddar closes his book and clicks at the lights, and they go out, leaving a dim one above his head. He puts his book aside and puts his arm tentatively over his wife. She does not nestle into his arms, the way she has been since they began to share a bed in comfort on a more regular basis rather than just in straight want and lust, and he rubs her thumb reassuringly back and forth across her stomach. She flinches back into him, and he lifts his hand away.

 

“There is something.” She whispers, sitting and she flicks her hands at the corners of the room out of habit, and a listening spell springs up.

 

“I want you to know something first.” He replies, and eases his arm around her so she is tucked against his chest. She nestles against him and tangles their fingers together.

 

“Okay.” She replies. “But you should know that what I have to say is important.”

 

“What I have to say is too. I should have said this a long time ago, but I want to make sure you know it now.”

 

“I am listening.”

 

“I want you to know that I didn’t marry you just so I could cement a deal with Tortall and get an heir off of someone who came from a proven fertile background.” He says slowly, and hurries the end of his sentence. He looks down, and she smiles up at him, amusement clear on her face.

 

“Initially you did.”

 

“Initially initially. If by initially you mean when I first received the proposal proposing the betrothal from your father. That was my initial consideration. It wasn’t entirely when I came to write to you and meet you and I guess tried to woo you and marry you. I always hoped that we could be friends, and that our friendship would give us a partnership. If we did not love each other, we could at least like each other and be partners, full partners in everything and you would be someone I wanted and needed by my side in support and inspiration and for the good of Carthak. I thought we could be happy together. I never intended on wedding you, bedding you, getting an heir, and shipping you off to some southern palace.”

 

“I wouldn’t have married you if I thought you were that type of man.” She blinks back tears, and he presses a kiss into her hair. “ My parents did not love each other initially, but there was attraction and affection and it grew into a force of love to be reckoned with, and I decided when I decided not to be a knight that if I had to marry, I would marry someone who I thought I could have that with.” 

 

“You are making me happy.” He replies quietly, and she leans back to kiss him. She breaks away after a moment, and twists around so that she can look at his face.

 

“You are making me happy too, and I think you will continue to do so. Even if I do not act like it in the coming months. My mother was alternately happy or slightly grumpy when she was with child, and I fear I will be the same.” She stops at the look on his face, and then presses her fingers to her mouth. “I’m not entirely sure. I’m not sure at all, really, but the timing seems to be okay, and, and, I meant to tell you in a full sentence and not just blurt it out like that, and I don’t want to tell anyone so you can’t treat me differently yet. Not until we’re sure. Kaddar?” She tilts her head back again to look at him directly in the eyes, but his head is tilted to the ceiling, his eyes blinking quickly. She reaches up and brushes the tears away from his cheeks, and he looks down again at her touch.

 

“I have changed my mind. You are quite the worst wife in the world.” He says, but he is smiling and his hands are cupping her cheeks. “That will be a story for our child. Mama just told me she was pregnant with you by telling me a story about your grandmother’s moods.” His thumbs brush her own tears away, and they kiss.

 

“I’m really not sure yet. And I’m scared.”

 

“We’ll find out for sure when we’re ready then. And we can both be scared and worried but we will face it together once we come to it.”

 

“And we will all be really very happy together.” She says, kissing him again, and rests their hands together across her stomach.


End file.
